Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape, World Heritage Site in Mongolia

About 360 km southwest of Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia, the grasslands stretch along both banks of the Orkhon River, where the history of the nomadic tribes who lived with the grasslands has unfolded, including archaeological sites dating from the 6th century and Karakoram, the capital of the Mongolian Empire from the 12th to 14th centuries.

Here, a World Heritage enthusiast explains why the Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape is a World Heritage Site in an easy-to-understand manner. Read this and you will definitely learn more about the Orkhon Valley!

What is the Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape?

The Orkhon Valley in central Mongolia covers 120,000 hectares of land along the Orkhon River. This is the home of the nomads, whose culture has developed along with the grasslands since prehistoric times. Even after the establishment of a vast nomadic nation, this area remained the center of culture and religion as their home base.

Human activity began here more than 60,000 years ago. Later, Turkic and Uyghurs, who are believed to be of Turkic descent, settled here, and finally Mongols settled in the area. When the Mongol Empire was established in the 13th century, Karakorum was built as the capital of the vast empire.

The cultural landscape of Karakorum includes the ruins of the Turkic from the 6th and 7th centuries, the Khar Balgas of the Uyghurs from the 8th and 9th centuries, and the ruins of Karakorum from the 13th century.It is also appreciated that nomads still continue their traditional way of life in this area, and it is a center of religious beliefs, such as the existing Erdene Zuu monastery.

Major registered properties

Old Turkic inscriptions

This inscription was found in the 19th century at Hosho Tsaidam in the Orkhon Valley. The inscriptions, written in reverberant script, are mainly in praise of Bilge Qaghan, the reigning khan of the reverted reverts. These inscriptions were written by Bilge Qaghan’s nephews and are valuable materials for deciphering the reverberant language.

Ruins of Karakorum

When Genghis Khan built his base here in the 13th century, his son Ögedei built a palace and made it the capital of the Mongol Empire; it remained a stronghold of the Mongols after the fifth generation, Kublai, moved the capital to present-day Beijing, but gradually fell into disrepair and at the end of the 16th centuryThe palace disappeared as material for the construction of the Erdene Zo Monastery.

Erdene Zo Monastery

This Tibetan Buddhist monastery stands on the site where Karakorum once stood; it was built at the end of the 16th century, making it the oldest temple in Mongolia and still home to many monks today. Since Tibetan Buddhism was protected by Yuan, the successor state of the Mongol Empire, Tibetan Buddhism spread widely among the Mongolian people.

For what reason is the Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape on the World Heritage List?

The Orkhon Valley was recognized for the following

Registration Criteria (ii)
That the nomads built a great empire from the Orkhon Valley, linking Asia and Europe and influencing the entire society, including commerce, religion, and military affairs.

Registration Criteria (iii)
The point is that nomadic culture was born from this land and is still emphasized in Mongolian society.

Registration Criteria (iv)
The remains and structures that remain in this valley, such as the city of Khar Balgas built by the Uighurs, Karakorum, which was the center of the Mongol Empire, and the Erdene Zor Monastery, which was the stage for the spread of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia, mean that this was an important stage in the history of mankind.

Conclusions and Thoughts of a World Heritage Maniac

It is difficult to define a cultural landscape, but in other words, let’s consider “Nomads and Grasslands” itself a World Heritage Site.

The Orkhon Valley was the birthplace of nomadic culture, which eventually led to the fusion of Eastern and Western cultures as they built a huge empire spanning Asia and Europe. And the ruins and architecture that remain in the Orkhon Valley mark an important stage in world history. It is also important to note that even though the number of Mongolians living in cities has increased in modern times, they have not forgotten their identity as nomads and cherish their nomadic culture such as gers.

Incidentally, the Tutsi script is a type of alphabet, and is a fairly old language in East Asia as a script other than Chinese characters. Incidentally, the existence of hiragana has been confirmed since the 9th century, and this is also a culture that our country is proud of.

*The content here is a study derived from research conducted by a World Heritage enthusiast.As for the data, interpretation differs depending on the medium.